The common view of luxury, consisting of fancy hotels, expensive clothing, and jewelry is an odd one to me. Those things are luxurious in that they are certainly not necessities, but it often doesn’t seem like they are doing the person indulging in them much good. On the other hand, with a little bit of creativity one can find luxuries that actually matter. They may not be necessary, but they bring a lot of joy or benefit.
My favorite luxury is having a private gym inside our apartment. We put rubber down in one of the empty bedrooms, I bought a commercial grade weight-stack workout machine, a compact squat rack, a barbell and weights, adjustable dumbbells, a bench, and a big TV and sound system. I spent less than $2000 on the equipment and we sacrificed a room, but now I can work out any time I want in any clothes (no shoes!) while watching a random cooking show on Netflix at high volume.
Having my own gym reduces the hassle of working out by about 50-70%. No changing, commuting, waiting for machines, driving back, etc. I just walk downstairs, do my thing, take a shower, and get back to work. I didn’t have my own gym for most of my life and I was just fine, but boy do I appreciate having it now.
I bought an LTE card for my laptop and I pay an extra $25 a month for service to it. Some months I don’t use it, most months I rarely do. But when wifi isn’t working somewhere or I forgot to get the wifi password from a friend, having that LTE card is the ultimate luxury. I could just tether off my phone of course, but then I have to make sure tethering is on and I have enough batteries and all that. Again, a luxury.
Another small luxury that I appreciate just about every day is having automated curtains. My whole house is automated, but the curtains in particular strike me as a real luxury. Without ever thinking about it, my curtains are always in the position they should be. I never have to open them in the morning or close them at night.
The point of this post isn’t to convince you that you should indulge in luxuries, unless you’re the type of person who deprives themselves due to momentum or fear. Instead it’s to make you think about how you are spending money and time in luxurious ways and to think about whether those are the best ways in which you can be spending that money.
Don’t let luxury be synonymous with superfluous. Instead let it represent things you could live without, but which free up your time or your focus for more pleasurable or productive things.
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Photo is the gym!
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